J&J ‘let the public down’ over recalls, CEO says

Johnson & Johnson disappointed consumers in recalling millions of bottles of popular children’s medicines, but products should be back on store shelves soon, the company’s chief executive said in documents released on Wednesday.

In prepared testimony released ahead of a congressional hearing, Chief Executive William Weldon said its McNeil consumer unit will start shipping nearly 1 million bottles of one product next week and hopes to distribute 4 million bottles by year’s end.

He did not say which product would be shipped.

His statement comes ahead of Weldon’s first major public appearance since the recalls at a House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee panel on Thursday.

“We let the public down,” Weldon said. “We did not maintain our high quality standards, and as a result, children do not have access to our important medicines.

“I accept full accountability for the problems at McNeil, and I will take full accountability for fixing them.”

Since the April 30 recall that saw 40 popular medicines such as Children’s Tylenol pulled from store shelves, J&J has “undertaken significant improvements at McNeil’s facilities,” Weldon said, adding that it is spending $100 million to do so.

As far as the controversial so-called “phantom” recall last year of faulty Motrin products, the company “should have handled things differently,” he said.

McNeil “acted with good intentions” in hiring contractors to help pull the product off store shelves, but that was not the way J&J companies should handle defective products, he said.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters)